


It's The Love That You Might Find

by AndreaLyn



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:07:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24629017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: Most people have one soul mark, but Kyle has seven. It takes some time for him to understand what they all mean and who they belong to, and when he does, he begins to understand just how loved he really is.
Relationships: Kyle Valenti/Isobel Evans, Max Evans/Liz Ortecho, Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 35
Kudos: 108





	It's The Love That You Might Find

**Author's Note:**

  * For [islndgurl777](https://archiveofourown.org/users/islndgurl777/gifts).



> For Crystal! Thank you for the beta, thank you for the support, thank you for all the excitement and delight and your amazing cheerleading. I hope you enjoy this piece about our Good Boy Kyle Valenti.
> 
> Title is from _I Found Out_ by Head and the Heart.

Ever since Kyle developed the marks, he’s worn a black band on his wrist. 

Some people at U of M thought it was a statement or a fashion choice. Girls would try and pull it off when they were in bed with him, but Kyle always shifted it back into place. “Bad soul mark?” they’d ask him sympathetically, because it was common for people with awkward or lewd symbols to want to cover them up.

Kyle would very quietly slip it back into place and say nothing. It’s not their business. 

The truth is, he’s not embarrassed about his mark. It’s not bad or anything, it’s just that he doesn’t only have the _one_. That’s a conversation he hates getting into, because everyone always assumes he’s into the poly thing, and he’s not. It’s not that he wants to love six other people, it’s that the universe has seen fit to put six marks inking the inside of his wrist.

Two puzzle pieces that look like they’d interlock if pushed together, a strange flower he doesn’t recognize, a little pink alien head a little larger than the rest, a set of guitars entwined with a star behind them, and a paintbrush. 

He knows it’s unusual. Most people only have the one. In fact, most people he knows only have one, but Kyle doesn’t. Kyle has plenty. He’s gone to therapists over the years, he’s read a lot of literature, and by the time he’s a young adult, he has a theory crafted by the finest minds.

He has these marks because these six people are firmly entangled with his life in a _crucial_ way. 

Some of the therapists think that _trauma_ lanced these on his skin.

Others think that love has done it.

Kyle’s pretty convinced that it falls somewhere in between. It takes time for them to all make sense, but eventually, they do. Each and every one, he’s able to place, and that’s how Kyle learns to cherish every soul mark on his skin for what they mean to him and vice versa.

* * *

_Liz_

He’d wanted to believe, with all his heart, that Liz’s mark had been The One. 

Never mind that it seemed to be half of a whole, that hers was incomplete unless joined with another mark on his skin. The puzzle piece in the same shade of red lipstick she wore to prom, but its matching piece had never been Kyle. Still, she’d been important enough to be inked on his skin, and that meant that she _mattered_ to Kyle. When he’d first seen it on her skin, his heart sang with hope.

She had a puzzle piece. 

So did Kyle -- he had two, in fact. 

Unfortunately, his heart broke after prom when Liz dumped him. It shattered the next day when he overheard Liz telling Maria that _Max Evans_ had a matching puzzle piece that fit hers on the inside of his forearm. 

Why the hell did Kyle have Liz’s mark on him? And what the hell did he have Max Evans’ mark on him for? 

It’s a question without an answer, but one day, it all becomes clear.

For now, all Kyle knows is that he’s got Liz’s mark, but she doesn’t have all of his. He doesn’t understand why, he just knows that life isn’t fair and it’s etched on his skin as proof.

* * *

_Max_

It takes a decade, but eventually, he figures it out.

Max’s life is in Kyle’s hands -- which happen to spend a lot of time inside Max’s chest cavity -- and with the help of Rosa, Guerin, and Liz, they bring him back. Max’s life is owed to them, and suddenly, the inking of his puzzle piece on his arm makes more sense. 

It’s what opens his eyes to the others. 

Liz’s mark is his first love (and Kyle is holding out hope that one of them may be his last love), but he’s beginning to think the others are there because of the heightened danger they’re in. Their lives are on the line more than ever, and Kyle has to wonder if the other marks he bears are like Max’s. 

Max owes his life to Kyle, and that means something.

That makes them _something_ , even if Max’s puzzle piece matches Liz. Kyle still has a copy of it, too, because after bringing Max back from the dead, he knows that he’s responsible for him. In a way, Kyle’s got to make sure that Max stays protected, and that feels like more than enough reason for their souls to twine together.

* * *

_Maria_

From what he’s being told, he should be dead. 

Maria’s shaky as she tells him about her vision and what she saved him from. He’s nearly died a few times in his life. Caufield, the bunker, that car. He’s sure there are more close calls, but those feel like his nearest brushes with death, only the last time it hadn’t happened -- because of her. This time, it’s not Kyle who’s saved a life.

Maria’s saved _his_.

The flower in her necklace (which is missing, somewhere) is the same one etched on his skin.

Now, he begins to understand.

“I need to repay you,” Kyle insists, again and again. “A drink, a new jacket, flowers,” he rattles off the usual things he’d go to, when it comes to showing his appreciation. 

She squeezes his hand, giving him a warm smile. “Just go to the hospital tomorrow and the day after and keep saving lives. That’s better than any flower. Doesn’t wilt,” she jokes. 

Her mark on his wrist blossoms and blooms with warmth and he knows that his life is safe thanks to her vision and her action. He’ll do whatever he can to make sure that his mark glows with that same soft warmth every day, especially when it’s so easy to keep his promise to Maria.

* * *

_Michael & Alex_

For years, Kyle had always figured that their mark was actually one person. 

Two guitars slightly set apart, with a star between them. 

At thirteen, the mark had been what caused Kyle to freak out. He wasn’t _gay_ , he wasn’t _like that_ , and the only person in his life who played guitar and had a mark anything close to his was another boy. He thought the mark belonged to his best friend, and he’d reacted badly, so badly, trying to excise Alex from his life like he was a cancer, using violence and anger and every awful bullying trick in the book as chemotherapy. 

He was really and completely stupid.

It only occurs to him years later, after he’s done his penance, that maybe the guitars don’t belong to Alex alone. He figures it out one night at Alex’s cabin when he’s out there camping with Michael and Alex, trying to mend damaged fences. They both have guitars -- Alex’s in his hands, Gregory’s in Michael’s -- and they’re playing a duet as the campfire flickers over their faces. 

Those two are mending fences of their own as they make their attempts to try again.

Sometimes, he wonders why they’re tangled together. It’s that way on Kyle’s skin, but their marks aren’t like that on their own. Michael has a guitar and a star, and Alex has a guitar of his own etched on his skin, but on Kyle’s, they’re tangled in together as one. It could be that the Manes family are so tied to Michael’s from years back, but Kyle thinks it boils down to one moment that epitomizes their tangled state.

Caulfield. 

Kyle had been removed from them, but in that moment, they’d come so close to dying together and from what Alex had said, it had defined what they were to one another. It made them _family_. He thinks that’s why their marks are entwined the way they are on his skin, because for Kyle, that’s how they are. There’s no talking to Alex without thinking about Guerin, and no doing anything with Guerin without Alex being a part of it, somehow. 

Out here, listening to them play their guitars (while Alex teasingly laughs at Michael and fixes his fingers on the strings), Kyle peers up to the stars above, and thinks that it doesn’t matter why they’re intertwined. 

It makes sense and it makes him feel better knowing that Alex has someone to care about him like that. 

Maybe it’s just the stars, maybe it’s the mood, but the word, _cosmic_ is the one that rattles around in his mind, blanketed under galaxies above.

* * *

_Rosa_

Hers is the one that took forever to understand. He spent ages at college looking for girls who loved painting or art to see if they had the matching symbol, but none of the ones he’d dated ever had a matching symbol. 

It’s not until he’s standing in a hospital stairwell, staring at a dead girl and her soul mark on the inside of her palm that he gets it. 

The paintbrush and bright brush strokes belong to her. 

His _sister_. 

He remembers, now, reading all those books on the concept of platonic soulmarks and how some people have their siblings’ marks on . Hers is the boundary of the marks, like she’s holding the line. It explains a lot, too -- like why the mark had been grey since he was seventeen and only now has it bloomed into bright, vivid, brilliant color. It’s brighter than ever, if he’s honest, as if it had been dulled and underwater for too long. 

When the color comes back to it, life feels like it comes back to Kyle, brightening him in ways he hadn’t realized he’d been dulled. 

It’s because he hadn’t been whole without his family.

Without his sister, without her mark alive and vibrant on her skin, he was incomplete.

* * *

_Isobel_

The last mark is the largest.

Maybe that means it’s more important. Maybe this is the ever-elusive soulmate mark, and not just a deep connection of the heart. When he was little, Kyle thought it was a joke. The little alien head, larger than the others, all because he lived in Roswell. 

Then, he’d found out that there really were aliens that walked amongst them.

And one of them’s been circling the periphery of his life for a while. For a while, Kyle had other priorities. Liz, healing Max, Steph, but Isobel’s always been there. Sometimes, in his dreams, he remembers their night together at Planet 7, and he wonders what they might have been if they’d gone off together.

That’s years ago, now. 

Now, everyone seems to have their happiness. Max and Liz have fit their puzzle pieces together with ease. Maria’s been driving up to see Gregory Manes on a regular basis, coming back charmed and starry-eyed about the kids. Michael and Alex have moved into Alex’s place, when they’re not off trying to dismantle Jesse’s ungodly legacy. Even Rosa’s found someone, in the halls of rehab, and now that they’re both over a year sober, they’re giving it a shot.

“Don’t you get lonely?” he asks Isobel one night, at Planet 7, where they meet for weekly drinks.

She gives him an amused smirk. “I think that three of my ex’s are _here_ tonight.”

She’s not wrong. 

“Yeah, ex-girlfriends,” Kyle points out. “Key on the ‘ex’. You haven’t been seeing anyone for a while, though.” He’s noticed, because he’s had a crush on Isobel for a long time and he’s been trying to figure out when it’s appropriate for him to ask her out. If she’s got her eye on someone else, though, there’s no point. It’s why he needs to know. “You looking for something with anyone specific these days?”

She hasn’t taken her eyes off him, sipping the straw of her slushy bellini and curling her tongue around it.

“I’ve got my eye on a man. He’s a really great one, too.”

Kyle swirls his vodka-tonic, trying not to get too depressed that he’s missed a window of opportunity again. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s a hot doctor, too, and even though he hasn’t done keto in a long time, he’s really hot and sweet and smart. He even takes time out of his week to come to a bar with his friend because she doesn’t like to cruise for company alone.”

Kyle stares up at her, the shock of her words sinking in.

She reaches for his hand, tugging the black band off his wrist to gently rub her thumb over the marks etched on his skin. 

“You told me that you know what every one of these marks means, except for this one,” she says, and taps it lightly with her index finger, the pink shimmering alien head. His mouth is dry as she shifts back to tug at the waistband of her jeans, easing it away to reveal a matching mark on her hip, along with shadowy echoes of the others, as if only hers is important on her skin.

_Oh_.

“Why didn’t you…” He wants to know why she didn’t say, but he’s struggling for words, because every impulse he’s fighting wants to touch those marks with his fingers and see if it’s as smooth as he expects, to see what it will feel like, and to understand what kind of connection they’ll have.

She gives him a nervous look. “I thought if you were interested, you’d say something.”

It’s time for Kyle to step up, then.

“Consider this something,” he says. “Isobel, do you want to go out for a drink?” Considering the drink in his hand, he makes a face, knowing that he has to step up and do a little more than that. “Isobel Evans, would you like to go out to dinner with me, on a real date, where I’m not getting bedazzled by overeager Planet 7 patrons?”

Her smile is sunny and sweet, filled with easy joy. He’s seen her happy before, but not like this. Never like this. 

And it’s all because of him.

The last mystery has slotted into place, his last love etched on his skin (or so he desperately hopes) and all he has to do is make sure he shows her that he can take care of her.

* * *

“Heal him! Damn it, Max!”

“I’m trying, Alex, would you stop yelling?”

Kyle opens his eyes, not sure what’s going on, other than the fact that it’s so damn noisy. “What’s going on?” he mumbles. He feels cold. Why is he so cold, other than his side? Turning, he sees Guerin pressed up against him, a hand over a gunshot wound. He barely remembers what happened. Was it the remnants of Deep Sky? Or Jesse and his people, inflamed by Michael and Alex dismantling yet another satellite site.

Somehow, he’d been shot and he’s losing a lot of blood, that draws his attention to his hand. He’d pressed it to the wound, and the blood is dripping down, covering some of his marks, but what he sees catches his attention.

He looks at his soul marks. They’re different now, there’s something new. 

It’s a ribbon, a line that connects them all, with a gordian knot symbol added below Isobel’s little alien head. It’s a sign that they’re inextricably connected, tied together. Kyle and his people. Kyle and the ones who would bring him back from the dead. 

They’re all here. 

Maria and Liz are talking about where they can put him, Isobel is holding his hand and barking at Max to tell her how to heal him. Guerin’s pushed up against him, trying to keep him from going into shock while Alex holds him down, shouting orders at the aliens to try and get them in line.

Down his line of sight, there’s Rosa, sitting at his feet.

“Am I dead?”

“You better not be, because I’m pretty sure that I’m not,” Rosa replies, and Kyle focuses on her voice, because the chaos around him is too much for his head to bear. “Don’t be an idiot, Kyle. Hold on.” 

He grabs hold of Isobel’s hand on one side, Alex’s on the other and squeezes tight. 

Hold on.

He does, to his people, to the soul marks on his arm, to the connection to them in his life. Kyle holds on, and he gives himself over to their care, knowing that these seven people will make sure that he’s okay. 

That’s what it means, to be this connected. He trusts in that and lets go of his worry and tension, settling in to let them take care of him and keep him from dying -- his _people_ , his loved ones.

It means that Kyle is loved. He’s wanted.

It means that to save his life, they’ll do anything and all for _him_.

It means he’s theirs, and they’re his. 

Always.


End file.
